Where did my time go?

This week i’ve felt hurried.. it felt like life kept getting in the way, preventing me from working the work hours I should to be working.

I can’t argue with a feeling, so I took an inventory, and mapped it out. With some help from my wife, and a history of text messages, I could mostly put together what was going on. (Harvest, the time keeping app for work, helps)

Inventory Result

The Blue is work.  Most of it was Working-At-the-Office (WAO), though some was Working-At-Home.. (WAH).. either in the Basement, or Outside. (Outside = it was a beautiful day)

The Yellow (yellow) is hanging with my spouselet .. which also happens to be very good for me, I enjoy that time immensely.   We’ve been watching Season 6 of Doctor Who.

The Orange is hanging out with people – my spouse’s family on Monday, and with a buddy for breakfast on Wednesday.  Note: Monday and Tuesday lunches should have been in Orange as well, I’m trying to make it a point to hang with the guys at work.

The Other Warm Color is “stuff I had to do”.  Some of it is house hold related stuff – some of it is being of service to other people.

And lastly – there’s Purple, the stuff I do for me.  Which includes writing this blog post, and my little jog around the block, and puttering around on whatever I want to do.

Analysis

Monday was bleah.  I had a family thing to go to, didn’t get my hours in.

Tuesday, I tried to catch up.  It was fairly training.  Wife and I recovered it well though.

Wednesday was shot – My son needed some assistance with homework, so there was some time lost to transit.  The good news there is, I could work from home – I multitasked – I had the dogs out, and the cat out, as I worked from my laptop.  It feels good to crittersit the critters and spend a little time with them.

What’s the problem? What’s missing? What needs to change?

I find myself lagging behind in my work hours and spending Friday, the day when I get 4 hours to work on anything I want (including this blog) — I spend it on catching up the hours I didn’t get done earlier in the week.

What causes this lag?    Its usually “household” things.  Sometimes its “people” things. Both of those are important, and they’re not going to budge.

The good news is, the days that I don’t have “life” going on, I can easily stay at work to get caught up.    Or even work from home to get caught up.  (I find that I can only work from home when I’m alone there – otherwise, my family drags me into their lives).    If I stay extra at work, I can usually put a workout in there as well.

Other Optimizations

I might try sleeping in till 7am, and not tossing and turning for an hour.

As mentioned earlier, I would like to add more exercise.   I’m not sure where – the current idea is, on days that “life” isn’t going on, work late, and add in a jog there.

Random thoughts: The YMCA is on my way to/from work, but the time needed after a workout to take a shower is a detriment; yet my chances this week of doing something on the way home .. there was only Tuesday.  I did jog on Tuesday.   So.. mission successful? Operating as designed?   Maybe the Late Night Jog is the best way to go, i used to jog at about 10pm or so, when I first started jogging.   After dinner, even, help with absorbing all those calories (diabetes related).

The Big Picture

I’m not seeing a lot of wasted time in there.. hours spent in front of a TV, flipping channels.

I am operating at 90% capacity, easily – with the remaining 10% necessary for buffer, sanity.   The occasional breaks – in white, with question marks – are signs of sanity, not places to cram more stuff in.

As a very wise person once told me – as my life progresses, I am going to find more and more good stuff that doesn’t fit.

What If I Were Retired

If I were retired, how would the ingredients change?

I suspect there would be a lot more puttering, and helping, and hanging with people going on.  And probably a lot less “creating” things (my current work).